


Sleep With One Eye Open

by DecoySocktopus



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Do Not Archive, Dream Sex, Forced Orgasm, Nonconathon Treat, Other, Sex Pollen, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:58:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecoySocktopus/pseuds/DecoySocktopus
Summary: Tim flips to a random page and starts reading. “I had been taken, and would remain here, trapped forever in this lightless place, without even the faintest hint to taunt me. The darkness pressed in, and seemed to fill my mouth, my nose-” he glances up at Martin, eyebrows raised. “Kinky,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t realise we had statements featuring…shadowy tentacle erotica. Someone should have told me, I’d be all over that.”





	Sleep With One Eye Open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



“Going out?”

Martin flinches at Tim’s reappearance; he fumbles with the coat he was half way through putting on, almost dropping it.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh, yeah, um…yeah. Melanie came and asked me if I wanted to get drinks with her and Basira? And I finished with the statement and now I’m…they take a lot out of you. So I’m taking a break.”

“Day drinking?” Tim asks. “At two in the afternoon? Nice one. I’m so glad I’m not the only one spiralling downwards into self destructive tendencies and workplace apathy.”

The guilt on Martin’s face would be laughable, if Tim still laughed. Instead it mostly just makes him want to shake the guy, though he’s not quite far enough gone to actually do it. Typical Martin. Trapped in a contract that will only release him when he’s either dead or no longer useful. Actually still trying to do his job, without a single thought for the fact that they’re all _enslaved to a monster_. Never stopping to ask what happened to the assistants that came before them.

“Elias won’t like you having fun during work hours,” Tim says, mock warningly. “He might have to tell you off. Might have to go and get the murder pipe back out of storage.”

Martin fiddles with the coat in his hands, plucking at buttons. “I don’t…care?” he says, and he does _not_ sound convincing about it. “And Melanie and Basira are going too, so I don’t see why it should be my fault. And. He wouldn’t be angry, I’ve just done a statement, he knows I can’t do another for a week or so, I…he’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Yeah, because he’s such a patient, understanding boss. Aside from all the murder. Whoops, did I say that out loud?”

“Tim.”

Tim ignores the plea on Martin’s face. He glances around Martin’s little cubby of an office; the walls are so close that there’s barely room to move around in, and Martin didn’t even get the one with the window. He’s kept the bland, Institute-issued painting on the wall, and he actually uses the free office calendars they all get given at every Christmas party.

Tim has taken to decorating his own office with pinups. Swimwear and underwear models, a bit of nudity here and there, some softcore porn. It’s not as satisfying as he thought it would be. Not as rebellious. Now he’s just surrounded by glossy, ever-watchful eyes.

For lack of anything else to do, he picks up the statement on Martin’s desk, pretending not to see the tape recorder sitting nearby. It’s not on. He does check.

“So what’s today’s horror story then?” he asks, feigning enthusiasm. “Which poor bastard got himself dismembered, or trapped, or fed to a giant, wobbling pile of meat?”

“It’s- no, this one’s actually quite interesting, it’s about the Sandman-”

Tim flips to a random page and starts reading. “ _I had been taken, and would remain here, trapped forever in this lightless place, without even the faintest hint to taunt me. The darkness pressed in, and seemed to fill my mouth, my nose_ -” he glances up at Martin, eyebrows raised. “Kinky,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t realise we had statements featuring…shadowy tentacle erotica. Someone should have told me, I’d be all over that.”

“No,” Martin says loudly. Predictably, his cheeks are already starting to flush a bright red that really doesn’t suit him. Tim’s never met anyone else who could blush as fast as Martin does. It’s actually quite fascinating to watch. “No, Tim, it’s not- don’t laugh. It’s not funny. The poor man had to blind himself to get away, he says he’d rather die than have to experience the pain again. It’s not funny at all.”

“It is a little bit. Sounds like someone just couldn’t handle his tentacles-”

“Why don’t you come out for a drink?” Martin interrupts. “Come on, Tim, it’s not as if you have anything better to do. Come and spend some time with Melanie and Basira. I mean, we barely even _know_ them, and we’re all working together! It’s nice to get to know your co-workers.”

Tim feels his smile slip. Not that it would ever have convinced anyone who isn’t Martin. “You know what’s even nicer?” he says. “Getting to know your co-workers, and _then_ getting to attend their funerals, because they were all eaten by monsters. Like Sasha. Remember Sasha?” He does feel a bit guilty about that last dig. The look on Martin’s face. But then he reminds himself that he doesn’t care anymore, and that no amount of sobbing quietly in the men’s restroom is going to bring back the Sasha they miss. “None of us are going to be around much longer anyway,” he says flatly. “So there’s no point getting friendly.”

“Tim, you can’t-”

“I’ll do the follow-up on this,” Tim says, just to shut him up. He regrets it immediately, but the offer’s made, and it seems to lift a bit of the weight off Martin’s shoulders. “You go and have your drink. Have several. In fact, just don’t come back to work today, because honestly, who cares?”

Martin watches him with that awful pleading expression that is probably part of the reason Jon tries to talk to him as little as possible. It’s a bit like staring a Labrador in the eyes and telling him that, no, you don’t actually plan to share your steak with him. And then chaining him up outside in the middle of winter. While it’s snowing. And maybe giving him a good kick while you’re there, because the expression is just that annoying.

Tim’s found his patience a bit lacking in recent days. He used to be so much better at handling Martin’s ubiquitous insecurities. Just one more crime to lay at Elias’ door, he supposes.

“Right then,” he says with another fake smile. “Like I said, follow-up. I’ll have it on your desk by the end of the day, how about that?”

“Oh. Um, yes, that’s…yes. Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“Um,” Martin says. “Keep an eye out for someone called ‘Maxwell Rayner’? I know he’s appeared in statements before, but I can’t find the notes, and I think he’s important. He scares me a bit.”

“Got it. Research scary man first, and _then_ wind down with a bit more research into the shadow tentacle thing. Excellent. Looks like I’ve got _quite_ the afternoon ahead of me. If you come back early from your Institute-funded pub crawl, make sure you knock before coming into my office, yeah?” He turns his back on Martin’s embarrassment, on the mottled red his cheeks take on any time people mention anything even mildly sex-related in his presence. Tim used to make a game of teasing it out of him. It used to be fun.

So many things that used to be fun aren’t anymore. Everything seems like such a slog. All the colours in the world are duller somehow, as if someone’s come along with a bucket and watered them down.

Unsurprisingly, there is little to be found online about any Maxwell Rayner. Nothing in the way of likely-looking social media, or anything business-related. And although Tim has a sneaking suspicion he’s heard the name before, he isn’t feeling up to digging through Jon’s notes, such as they are. Anyone would think the guy kept them messy on purpose. After all that fuss about Gertrude’s slacking around and misfiling, who’d have thought it?

He finds a copy of the English translation of _Der Sandmann_ online and reads it in his office. Standard psychological horror with some nice, gory twists, but he can sort of see why their statement-giver fixated on the folklore aspect of the Sandman, short though it is. It’s a very different take from the version Tim’s familiar with, which as far as he can remember just involves a kindly creature that puts children to sleep at night. There definitely wasn’t any blood or eye-theft involved.

“Huh,” Tim says out loud. “Well there’s another childhood story ruined. What’s next, Disney? I can’t wait to see what the monsters make of Bambi. Oh wait, yes I can.” Laptop resting on his legs, he kicks his feet up onto the desk, crushing several piles of paperwork what will need filing at some point in the distant future, when he feels like it. On the walls around him, his pinups watch. They’re not as fun as they seemed when he first brought them in. Not as rebellious.

Now all they do is watch him. Quite frankly, it’s bloody difficult to objectify a swimsuit model who watches his every move with glossy, motionless eyes, and something a lot like hunger. And not the fun kind.

Tim lifts a hand and flips the room off. “Stare all you want,” he tells the posters. “I’ve done one entire hour of work, and I’m ready for a nap. Pretending to give a damn is _exhausting_.”

He closes the laptop and sets it aside. Slumps down into his chair, feet still up on the desk, and pointedly shuts his eyes.

When he opens them again, the Sandman is waiting.

It comes to him in a coalescing of shadows, lapping at the glossy edges of his pinups like waves at high tide. The darkness spreads stickily, leeching colour from swimsuits and skin, bleeding across his walls, floor, ceiling. It sucks at the light. Like a vortex, it consumes. And in its wake walks the monster.

 Sand drips ceaselessly from the corners of its mouth; in the darkness, it almost resembles blood. It is tall and thin. It walks on gangly legs that bend at odd angles, as if the joints inside them are broken, or backwards, or just don’t recognise the laws of this particular world. Sometimes it lifts them and scuttles like a spider. Sometimes they fold on themselves like a praying mantis’ arms. It moves miles across the small space of his office; it seems to come from impossibly far. Its shadow swallows the horizon.

Tim blinks and the world lies in darkness.

He feels icy terror wash over him as he fumbles with the drawers of his desk, looking for the torch he knows he has in one of them. But the monster is at his side, much too tall, folding in from the waist to peer at him. Drips of sand fall from its eyes like tears; in the shadows of its sockets, Tim sees only oblivion.

“Oh…fuck me,” he whispers. Whimpers, maybe. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

He’s just detail-oriented enough to take note of the open sack that sits at the creature’s hip. It brims with sand, glistening as he looks at it. It is the only point of light in the room.

Tim looks back up at the Sandman and almost shrieks in horror; one long finger hovers at his face, so close that he has to go cross-eyed to focus on it. It wavers slightly, drifting between one eye and the other. Behind it, the head tilts, birdlike.

 _Shouldn’t be able to see it,_ Tim realises. _That man in the statement couldn’t, once it got close. All he could see was darkness- but I see the monster. Why is that?_ Scared though he is, he’s making mental notes of the encounter. Irritation wells up; he will need to give a statement. Elias will be ever so pleased. The creature that owns the Institute, it’ll be pleased.

And then Tim understands.

“Sorry,” he tells the Sandman. His voice sounds dull in the shadows that blanket him. As if the walls are too close to allow sound to travel. “Already got one monster with a claim on me. That’s probably why I’m still seeing you. So, actually, if you blind me does that mean I’m not qualified for the job anymore? Think it’ll fire me? Food for thought.” He’s a lot more keen on the idea than he should be. Blinded or trapped? He likes his vision; he likes looking at nice architecture and well-written books, and beautiful men and women, preferably with as few clothes as possible. There’s a lot to be said for vision.

But the Institute has drained that appreciation from him, much in the same way the Sandman drained the light from his poky little office space. If he stays here, he’s dead. So who gives a damn?

“Yeah, you know what, I’ll take that deal,” Tim says. He reaches for the sack of sand with hands that shake, though he can already feel his chest going tight with terror. It’ll hurt. He knows it’ll hurt. Probably more than anything’s ever hurt in his life. But at least he’ll _have_ a life, which is more than he can say for the alternative.

Something pushes his hand away. Its texture is odd; not like skin and not like fur. Not unlike feathers, maybe. And as Tim pulls back, the Sandman rests a palm just above his forehead. It lowers it across his eyes.

Nothing happens. Tim blinks, confused, and the creature repeats the gesture. This time, he understands what it wants from him.

He closes his eyes.

And then, because he’s not stupid and he’s _not_ about to take orders from a monster that weeps sand and steals people’s eyes, he tries to open them again. They stick in place, as though sealed with glue. Tim sucks in a sharp breath. He feels himself lose hold of his brief moment of bravado.

It all starts to fall apart. Mostly him.

There are things climbing their way up his arms, his legs. Textured like and not like features, warm and cool to the touch; they find their way around his joints and wind their way around his limbs, over and over again. Tim thinks of railroad tracks and endless even parallels. He clenches his muscles and finds no give in the bindings. They wrap around his shoulders and neck; Tim panics.

When he opens his mouth to shout, something slides in through the gap in his lips.

Gagging, Tim tries to lift his arms to grab at it; he’s not surprised to find them held in place by the ties that wind around them. Can’t fight. Can’t scream past the black, vine-like strand that trails its way past his teeth, exploring his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Not that it would matter if he could scream, because who would hear him? Who would care?

The lack of vision makes it worse. Makes him twice as aware of the rustles of movement around him, and the pressure against his limbs and tongue. He can’t taste anything, but feels like he should. And as the strand wriggles its way around his mouth, Tim finds himself thinking back to the original statement. _I had been taken, and would remain here, trapped forever in this lightless place, without even the faintest hint to taunt me. The darkness pressed in, and seemed to fill my mouth, my nose…_

He’s really starting to regret making fun of the guy. This is not the shadowy tentacle experience he was picturing.

“Get off,” he tries to mumble around the thing in his mouth. “Get it out, or I’ll…” He’s a little short on threats at the moment, but his general tone seems to get his point across. Without warning, the intrusion is removed, leaving his mouth empty, gaping. Tim sucks in air in sharp gasps.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, fuck, okay, this is not what I signed up for. Fucking _hell_.”

A hand grabs his chin. The nails are just a little too long, a little too pointed; they dig into his skin like claws, tilting his face up. Tim holds very still. He clenches his eyelids closed. Wonders if that will be enough to keep the thing from prying them back open. He opens his mouth to start begging.

Sand is drizzled into it, trickling over his tongue. Like a mouthful of sugar, and as soon as Tim thinks it, he finds himself tasting a sweetness that wasn’t there moments before. It coats the inside of his mouth, and just keeps coming.

Eventually, he has to swallow.

The world…tilts around him.

Around his arms and legs, the bindings don’t feel oppressive anymore; instead, Tim is abruptly too aware of every inch of skin they don’t cover, every place he is not touched by a darkness that now strikes him as warm and welcoming. That awareness turns to an uncomfortable prickling, like tens of tiny, cold needles jabbing at him. He writhes, uncomfortable. And when the heavy tendril presses at his lips again, he parts them without arguing. The darkness is good. Everywhere else is…painful. He gets the idea.

 _Something in the sand,_ Tim thinks, dazed. _Drugged or something- fuck, that stings._ He welcomes the pressure that winds itself lazily up his neck and begins to climb his cheeks; it puts a stop to what is rapidly becoming a cold, sharp stabbing sensation, anywhere he’s not being touched. He groans against the weight in his mouth.

The chair underneath him is abruptly pushed away, and Tim is airborne. He hates it immediately; his legs dangle, arms hanging, and darkness is a wavering support that doesn’t feel safe at all. But it does allow those oddly textured tendrils to wind their way around his lower back, cutting off the pain in his spine. Constricting him, though he finds he no longer minds. With every second, the stinging gets worse.

“Make it stop,” Tim tries to say. He wonders if the Sandman can read his mind. If it’s even still in the room with him, or if it settled for feeding him a mouthful of sand and leaving him to scream. To welcome the darkness, because it numbs a sensation like frostbite, as if his skin might freeze off and peel away.

 _Shadow, good. No shadow, bad._ Tim makes a mental note to phrase it a little better when giving his inevitable post-trauma statement. Or maybe he won’t bother. If anyone’s curious enough to want more detail, let them come and find out for themselves.

He hates how scared he is. Hates that he wriggles helplessly in thin air, trying to tuck himself further into the darkness that winds affectionately around him, because at least it grants him a measure of peace. Hates the moan that breaks through as several thick tendrils wind their way up his thighs, inside his trousers. He has a pretty good idea of where this is heading; Tim is, among his other varied  and sophisticated hobbies, something of a porn connoisseur. He’s seen this before. He’s jerked off to this plenty.

Funny how much less entertaining it is now he’s the one wrapped up in a cocoon of probably malevolent tentacles. But that just seems typical of his life these days: all things good and wonderful, corrupted into monstrosity. Welcome to the Magnus Institute. 

Tim gives a yelp as the thing in his mouth – _just call it a fucking tentacle and be done with it_ , he thinks sourly- pushes past his tongue to the back of his throat. He gags again, and it withdraws. Thickens perceptibly. Fills his mouth to the point where all he can do is make muffled sounds around its weight, saliva slipping uselessly down his chin.

The darkness encompasses him. It covers his head completely, aside from the smallest of gaps that allows him to suck in panicked breaths through his nose. He feels its heavy presence cradle his skull and neck, and cluster around his closed eyelids, clinging to his lashes.

It’s still better than pain; there is so little of his body left exposed by now, but Tim starts screaming anyway. He spreads his legs wide, inviting the shadows to cling their way up his thighs and down his stomach beneath his clothes. Muffled, he begs it to hurry the hell up before his skin starts peeling off. To fix whatever it did to him, because he swears that if it doesn’t, he _will_ find a way to hurt it. Somehow.

When the first tentacle starts to nudge against his hole, Tim makes a sound of mixed frustration and relief. Get the show on the road, address the cliché, finish up and leave him alone to regret things even more than he normally does. He feels his breaths come faster as its tapered point nudges more firmly, as it extrudes an oily substance that smears itself around his rim. And then it starts to slip its way inside him.

The intrusion is larger than expected, expanding as it enters and makes itself comfortable against his insides. Thick and heavy, wriggling deeper. Tim moans and immediately regrets it. He’d like to think himself a little harder to please than this. His standards should be higher. He should not be so easy, but there are tendrils wrapping their way up his cock, and he’s hard already. Arching his spine, kicking at thin air as the thing inside him pushes against his inner walls like nothing else he’s ever felt.

 _Note to self,_ he thinks, dazed, whimpering senselessly at the tendrils that tighten around his cock. _When giving statement, try not to sound like all you did was take it. Tell them you took control, tell them you loved it and wanted more. Tell them the fucking Sandman wrapped you up in its shadowy tentacle appendage things, and you invited it in._

But the truth of the matter is that he is utterly helpless, slowly losing his mind. There is no longer any pain; every inch of him is smothered, cocooned, wrapped up in shadow. The tendrils around his cock wind over and around themselves, providing an uncanny friction that Tim bucks up into. His every movement forces the thickest tendril deeper, prompting unwilling moans from him. It’s much too large, flaring outwards as it enters him, expanding until he sobs. Threatening to split him apart.

He doesn’t know how long it lasts. Only that he aches with a very different kind of pain; his cock leaks, and the tendrils around it tighten, squeezing him to desperation. He’s fucked far too deep; an inner pressure that has him yelling, pleading, sucking hard on the tendril in his mouth in the hope that he can encourage it to end this.

When he comes, it’s an almost agonising release. And for a few frightening moments, nothing changes. The tendrils squeeze his aching cock, and inside him, the thick intrusion continues to thrust. It’s too much. Far, far too much; Tim gags and moans and arches against the unyielding shadows that coat him.

And then they withdraw.

He makes an incoherent sound as he is released, pressure withdrawing from his head, arms, legs, sliding free from his hole with a sickening wet sound he cringes away from. There is something soft under his back; he’s on the ground, lying on the carpet. Everything hurts.

Tim fights against the weight of his eyelids, forcing them slowly open. The light almost blinds him; he squints at his walls, his softcore posters and the peeling paint underneath. At the inky black shadows that retreat as he watches, folding in on themselves, releasing the light.

In the doorway, the Sandman waits.

They stare at each other. The monster drips sand from its mouth, balances unevenly on gangly legs that do not bend correctly, that make Tim’s stomach roil to look at them.

It lifts one clawed hand and flicks its fingers at him. Tim flinches back instinctively before realising that he’s being waved at. He is disbelieving. And then he is angry. He lifts one aching arm just far enough to flip it off; his arms are covered in bruises, a winding purple pattern that climbs his skin like vines. They fade as he glances at them. And the pain fades with them.

The Sandman retreats, walking an impossible path against a dark, endless horizon, the shadows milling about its ankles like eager hounds. At a certain point, Tim blinks and finds it gone. His office door is closed. The lights are on, the room is as he left it, and the clock on the wall shows that barely five minutes have passed since he last looked at it. His chair stands a little way off from the desk, as if shoved back by someone in a hurry to stand. Or pushed out of the way by a creature of shadow and smothering.

For once, Tim finds himself genuinely speechless.

The taste of sugar lingers on his tongue, grainy and cloyingly sweet.


End file.
